Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.

Friday, November 01, 2013

Criminalising Farmers In Favour Of Profits

Currently many activists in the US are fighting large corporations for the right to have food labelledaccurately, informing the public if genetically modified ingredients are contained within it. Farmers in India have long been fighting against the push by big corporations to make the use of genetically modified seeds the norm. Below is information regarding the difficulties being suffered by African farmers in the push by multinationals to grant intellectual property rights to commercial concerns, undermining the farmers.'Big Agriculture' - a bastion of capitalism - is being fought on all continents by real people, people representing majorities, against the stripping of their rights and for the preservation of producing food democratically. JS

A
new legal framework to be adopted by the Africa Regional Intellectual
Property Organisation will approve the intellectual property rights of
Western commercial plant breeders and fundamentally undermine the rights
of African farmers

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa is gravely concerned
about a draft law developed under the auspices of the Africa Regional
Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO), dealing with a harmonised
regional legal framework for the protection of plant breeders’ rights,
titled ‘Draft Regional Policy and Legal Framework for Plant Variety
Protection.’

ARIPO is in the process of seeking the approval of its Member States
to adopt the legal framework, possibly at the next ARIPO Administrative
Council and Council of Ministers meeting due to take place 25–29
November 2013 in Kampala, Uganda.

BENEFITING MULTINATIONAL SEED COMPANIES

The regional legal framework is part of the broader thrust in Africa to
harmonise seed laws at the regional economic community level to ensure
regionally seamless and expedited trade in commercially bred seed
varieties for the benefit of multinational seed companies. It is also
designed to facilitate the transformation of African agriculture from
peasant-based to inherently inequitable, dated and unsustainable Green
Revolution/industrialial agriculture. It is also a mechanism designed to
coerce African countries into joining UPOV 1991, a restrictive and
inflexible legal regime that grants extremely strong intellectual
property rights to commercial breeders and undermines farmers’ rights.

The ARIPO legal framework, if approved, will make it illegal for farmers
to engage in their age-old practice of freely using, sharing and
selling seeds/propagating material; a practice that underpins 90% of the
smallholder agriculture systems in sub-Saharan Africa.

The ostensible rationale for the draft legal framework emanates from the
ARIPO Secretariat – a committed champion of UPOV 1991–- that a regional
PVP system is necessary to promote R&D in new plant varieties and
that high performing plant varieties will increase agricultural
productivity, improve rural income and ensure food security in Africa.
These claims are, in turn, entirely based on those made by the UPOV
Secretariat, foreign entities such as the United States Patent and
Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Community Plant Variety Office
(CPVO) and the seed industry (e.g. the African Seed Trade Association
(AFSTA), the French National Seed and Seedling Association (GNIS) and
the International Community of Breeders of Asexually Reproduced
Ornamental and Fruit Varieties (CIOPORA). All of these entities have
vested interests in promoting UPOV 1991. The seed associations represent
powerful companies that will make huge commercial gains from the
implementation of UPOV 1991 in ARIPO member states.